Coolest Cookie Monster Cake

First, I baked two standard round cake layers for this Cookie Monster Cake. I used a standard yellow cake mix. Next, I baked both halves of the Wilton Soccer Ball Sphere Pan. I used Betty Crocker Triple Chocolate Fudge cake mix plus a package of chocolate jello instant pudding mix to “dense it up”. If you try to bake in a 3D pan without densing up the cake mix, it will fall apart and/or cave in on itself.

I leveled all four cakes. You can get a leveling tool at the craft store or you can use plain dental floss. I chilled the cakes (don’t freeze them or there will be condensation!) while I made the cream cheese frosting.

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Cream cheese frosting:

1 package full fat regular cream cheese

1 lb powdered sugar

1 cup Crisco (off brands never give me the same results)

1 T Wilton meringue powder (Walmart has it on the cake supply aisle)

1-3 T water

Blend all ingredients together, adding water slowly to get the texture you need. I usually divide my icing in half. I add more water to one and make thin icing for general use – crumb coating and filling between layers. I use the stiff icing for decorating.

Cover your icing! It will harden!

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To decorate, I started by icing one layer of my round cake and stacking the second layer. Then, I applied a thin “crumb coat” and put it back in the fridge.

I needed to cut away some of cookie monster’s bottom lip, so I used the round cake pan as a guide to cut away that part with a big long knife.

I positioned the bottom half of cookie monster up against the rounds and iced using the stiff icing with a small star tip. (Blue – of course) I iced over the top with the thin icing tented red (for the inside of his mouth). Then, I positioned the top half and iced it with the same blue/ same tip.

I melted chocolate and dropped it on the cake to create giant chocolate chips. Hind sight is 20-20! Should have dropped them on wax paper and let them cool first. My icing started to melt and I had to do some patch work!

The eyes are cake balls. I took the extra cake from his mouth and crumbled it into a little bit of icing. I rolled the “dough” into balls and dipped in store-bought white chocolate coating. Then I sat them on a tray (use cooking spray) and pushed a chocolate chip into each one. I put those in the fridge to harden. Right before the party, I used toothpicks to secure the eyes to the cake.